A Comparative Study Of Courtesy Language Between Chinese And Americans From The Perspective Of High-context And Low-context Communication

This thesis is an attempt to make a comparative study of courtesy language between Chinese and Americans from the perspective of high-context and low-context communication.Politeness, as a social phenomenon, exists in all countries. It is an important tool to maintain human relationship, establish social harmonies and aid successful communication. Courtesy language helps people establish interpersonal relationships and keep the communication smooth through greeting, apologizing, giving thanks and compliments and their respective responses. It's indispensable for people to use courtesy language when communicating.Hall (1976) proposes and distinguishes the concept of high-context communication and low-context communication in terms of how the information is conveyed. According to him, China is a typical representative of high-context communication countries, while America belongs to one of the low-context communication countries. So when people from the two countries communicate with each other, they will be influenced by cultures.In this thesis, the author will make a tentative study on the comparison of courtesy language based on Hall's high-context and low-context theory, which indicates how each language's features influence Chinese and Americans to greet, compliment, apologize and give thanks. This thesis first introduces the notion of politeness and politeness principle and theory. And then the author analyzes the differences between courtesy language of Chinese and Americans. Finally, the author clarifies these differences based on the characteristics of high-context and low-context communication culture and the underlying cultural reasons that cause the Chinese high-context and American low-context communication culture will be revealed. The author has found that some characteristics such as messages internalized/ messages plainly coded, reactions reserved/ reactions on the surface, covert and implicit/ overt and explicit, flexible ingroups and outgroups, strong interpersonal bonds /fragile interpersonal bonds have a significant influence on courtesy language between Chinese and Americans.